Judgment Pricing

Many judgment owners spend a lot of time trying to
sell their judgments
for as much cash upfront as they can possibly get.
Because judgments
expire, and judgment recovery depends on the judgment
debtor, the economy,
costs money, takes time, and is financially risky;
every real judgment
buyer is now very conservative about how much they will
pay for judgments.
The JudgmentMarketplace is almost always a buyer's
market, because only
one out of a hundred judgments can be sold to an actual
judgment buyer for
more than 1-7% of the judgment's face value.

This article discusses the factors that determine the
price that a
judgment buyer will actually pay for a judgment. This
article is my
opinion, and not legal advice.
I am a judgment broker, and am not
a lawyer. If you ever need any legal advice or a
strategy to use, please
contact a lawyer. The three biggest advantages of
buying judgments for
cash upfront are:

1) When one buys a judgment for cash upfront, it is
almost certain that
they will never again have any more contact with the
original judgment
creditor, after the sale and the assignment of the
judgment. With future-payment
contingency recovery recovery, excessive contact from
original judgment
creditors can be a headache.

2) When one buys a judgment for cash upfront, they will
have a very firm
standing in almost every court situation; when
attempting to recover a
judgment they own 100%, with no contingency
arrangements or obligations.
In some courts, especially bankruptcy courts, judges do
not allow
assignees of record, with future-payment obligations to
the original
judgment creditors; to represent themselves in their
courts.

3) When one buys a judgment for cash upfront, they do
not have any
lingering obligations to the original judgment owner.
They can settle
their judgment quickly, for any amount they can
negotiate; or recover as
much judgment money as reality allows, and they do not
have to share any
potential profits, except for potential owed taxes.

The two biggest disadvantages of buying judgments for
cash upfront are:

1) Nothing is guaranteed in judgment recovery. Anything
one pays to buy a
judgment for cash upfront, and then to attempts to
recover the judgment,
could be lost. The judgment debtor could file for
bankruptcy protection,
die, lose their job, claim exemptions, lose their
house, get divorced, become
sick or disabled, go to jail, move overseas, expertly
hide their assets,
pay a lawyer to fight every recovery effort, or attempt
to vacate or
appeal the judgment.

2) There is a chance of being ripped off. There are
some alleged creditors
who attempt to sell fake judgments, see my article
about fake judgments.
Also, sometimes the judgment debtor already paid off
some, or all of the
judgment; and the original judgment creditor never
filed a partial or a
full satisfaction of judgment with the court. If you
get ripped off when
buying a judgment, you can sue the original judgment
creditor, but as we
know, suing someone is not a guarantee of getting
repaid later.

Judgment sale prices depend almost entirely on the
available assets of the
judgment debtor. Factors that strongly effect the
purchase price of a cash
upfront judgment sale, include what assets the judgment
debtor currently
owns, the age of the debtor, what state they live in,
their employment or
income status, when the judgment will expire, the
debtor's other unpaid
judgments, their crime record and bankruptcy history,
and their general
stability.

Nationwide, average judgments sell for between 1 and 7
percent. I have
introduced thousands of judgment owners to judgment
buyers, and the
largest percentage cash upfront sale transaction I have
ever seen or heard
about so far, (that really happened) happened only
once, for 37% cash
upfront of the judgment's face value.

That single 37% cash upfront judgment sale had a one in
a million type of
judgment debtor. That very rare judgment debtor was
fairly young, with no
other judgments, who had no bankruptcy history, who
owned several
expensive properties with no loans or liens, a stable
$200K per year
income, and owned several luxury cars with no loans or
liens.

The only
reason that single judgment sold for 37% cash upfront
was that the debtor
was "perfect", and owned somewhat liquid available
assets worth at least
25 times as much as that one (non-default) judgment
against them. If your
judgment debtor is not rich, nobody will pay you that much
cash upfront for
your judgment.